Most underrated president?

April 8, 2008 in history and current events | by ari

While Yglesias is busy prospectively pimping George W. Bush’s merits, Ilya Somin, over Volokh Conspiracy, asks: who’s the most underrated American president? His answer? Warren Harding, about whom we’ve already talked. My answer? Let me get back to you. Wait, how about John Quincy Adams? Or maybe Bill Clinton? On fourth thought, I’ll get back to you after all. In the meantime, what do you think?

61 comments

April 8, 2008 at 4:08 pm

Jeremy Young

Well, y’all know how I feel about Woodrow Wilson, but since the debate continues to rage about him even within the scholarly community, I’m going to go with one that’s more surprising:

Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter, elected as a Southern conservative, was the most radical leftist foreign-policy President in American history. His insistence on fighting for global human rights, even to the detriment of his own political career, should be an inspiration to all who follow him. He blazed a trail in that regard that future American Presidents would do well to follow.

Now you should do a thread on most OVER-rated American President in history, so I can blast away at Dwight Eisenhower.

April 8, 2008 at 4:17 pm

ari

I’ll do overrated tomorrow or the next day, Jeremy. For you.

April 8, 2008 at 4:30 pm

drip

And Carter was amazingly prescient and resolute. But if you don’t credit him with stopping inflation (which I would) , keeping the hostages safe (which I would) and getting the military back on track (which I would), then you aren’t going to find him underrated.

So, I guess I have to go with Edith Wilson.

April 8, 2008 at 4:33 pm

ari

That’s no fair, drip. I was going to do Rachel Jackson. Because she had to put up with the most overrated president in American history. Oops, sorry about that, Jeremy, I think I jumped the gun.

April 8, 2008 at 4:33 pm

Gene O'Grady

I always go with Grant, on the assumption that he was the least racist president between Lincoln and Truman, at least made an effort at making reconstruction go, made an effort at a slightly more humane treatment of Native Americans — and I just like him better than his opponents like Henry Adams. Plus I believe he upheld American prestige on an international level after leaving office.

No, I do not enjoy the contrarian role — and am eager to be set straight by real historians.

April 8, 2008 at 5:06 pm

PorJ

Chester A. Arthur. No, seriously. Imagine how the federal government would function without the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (probably akin to the way its functioned under Nixon and Bush, but that’s a different question). It cost him his Presidency, but created new standards & a modicum of integrity for the federal bureaucracy. (Of course, he was a racist and a dandy, too, but that’s for another post).

On the other hand, the Wikipedia link says historians generally admire Arthur; frankly, I didn’t know they even remembered Ol’ Chet (when was the last biography?).

Carter underrated??? Inflation? Malaise? “Are you better off now than you were four years ago”? Bringing Evangelical Christianity into American politics? The Wild Rabbit incident? Bert Lance*? Billy Brew? Really, I could go on all night. If anything: Carter is overrated already; but it wouldn’t surprise me to see historians restore the reputation of his presidency based upon political affinity and his later work. America’s finest ex-president, probably (although Hoover was rather incredible, in his civil service work in the 40s and 50s), but underrated… I think that says more about the politics of the evaluator than the Carter presidency (as all these things do).

*(I once published an OpEd stating that 100 years from now nobody will remember or care about Scooter Libby. It had a line that said something like: “Does anybody remember Bert Lance?” The editor took it out: nobody remembers Bert Lance)

April 8, 2008 at 5:23 pm

ari

Who’s Chester Arthur?

April 8, 2008 at 5:23 pm

drip

I was going to do Rachel Jackson I am not going to do Edith Wilson. You win.

April 8, 2008 at 5:29 pm

andrew

William Henry Harrison never gets a fair chance in these ratings.

April 8, 2008 at 5:33 pm

bitchphd

I like Carter too. Plus his post-presidential career has been impressive. Most underrated in history, maybe not, but most underrated at present, probably.

April 8, 2008 at 5:37 pm

andrew

If post-presidential careers are taken into account, John Quincy Adams deserves a lot of credit for his anti-slavery work. Particularly the fight against the gag rule.

April 8, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Jeremy Young

Ari, no quarrel from me with either of your choices. Why anyone would want to resurrect Jackson’s career at this point (ahem, Sean Wilentz, I’m looking at you) I have no idea.

Andrew, if pre-presidential careers are taken into account, John Quincy Adams is easily one of the five greatest Presidents in history, if only for being America’s greatest Secretary of State. On the other hand, the award would have to go to Madison then — for writing the Constitution.

That would be an interesting question too: which of our Presidents had the most odious pre-Presidential career? I’d have to go with Chester Arthur, America’s greatest Civil Service grafter. Truly, he was to the Civil Service what Joe Kennedy was the SEC — spent his entire career defrauding it until put in a position to fix it.

April 8, 2008 at 6:11 pm

silbey

Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Still underrated.

April 8, 2008 at 6:14 pm

PerfectlyGoddamnDelightful

Carter’s foreign policy legacy is complicated. There’s evidence that he deliberately egged the Soviets on to invade Afghanistan, and was funding the fundamentalists there before the invasion. Andrew Bacevich traces our modern era of military committment to the Persian Gulf to the “Carter Doctrine”, where (in his January, 1980 SOTU) he defined the Persian Gulf as a vital military/strategic interest and started to shape Pentagon policy around that.

And of course, from a different angle, Desert One was not a success.

Carter has a very complex administration, there are a lot of forces pushing in different directions. Kind of the collision between 70s liberalism and the beginning of the 80s reaction. In domestic policy, you have deregulation and probably the most interventionist energy plan ever. Inflation and appointing Volcker. In foreign policy, human rights and the Egypt/Israel treaty and the stuff I point to above.

Plus, he lost to Reagan, which was a bad thing.

April 8, 2008 at 6:47 pm

Jonathan Rees

Personally, I have a soft spot for William Howard Taft, mostly because of his antitrust policies.

April 8, 2008 at 7:11 pm

teofilo

which of our Presidents had the most odious pre-Presidential career?

I’d say William Henry Harrison.

As for most underrated, I’m going to go with Zachary Taylor. He didn’t do a whole lot in his brief term, but the things he did do were pretty good and fairly unexpected given his background.

April 8, 2008 at 7:19 pm

eric

Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Still underrated.

So true.

April 8, 2008 at 7:25 pm

ari

One can read more about FDR in this fine (and slender) book, I’m told.

April 8, 2008 at 7:26 pm

foolishmortal

Jimmy Carter? But he’s history’s greatest monster! (Carter seconded).

April 8, 2008 at 7:27 pm

andrew

I’ll do overrated tomorrow or the next day

The concept of overratedness ~~is overrated~~ has been called into question.

April 8, 2008 at 7:36 pm

foolishmortal

There’s evidence that he deliberately egged the Soviets on to invade Afghanistan, and was funding the fundamentalists there before the invasion.

There’s more than evidence: Consonants Brzinski has admitted as much. Whether they were funding “fundamentalists” or random Afghans is still in question. But that was not necessarily stupid. The stupid thing was saying, “Here, ISI, is an unlimited spigot of money to do with as you wish, as long as it’s in Afghanistan.” Whether it was the Carter or Reagan who adopted that policy, I’m not sure. It was stupid either way.

April 8, 2008 at 7:36 pm

eric

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The Man is keeping him down.

April 8, 2008 at 7:38 pm

foolishmortal

Also stupid are misplaced end tags and wordpress’s lack of a preview.

April 8, 2008 at 7:44 pm

charlieford

Davis? If you’ve read Steiner’s THE PORTAGE TO SAN CRISTOBAL OF A.H., perhaps you’ll agree that, likewise, ol’ Jeff destroyed slavery.

April 8, 2008 at 8:23 pm

urbino

Now you should do a thread on most OVER-rated American President in history

Nah, presidents are too clinical a subject. How about most overrated historian in history?

April 8, 2008 at 8:50 pm

Robert Halford

Doesn’t it depend on who’s doing the ratings?

If it’s the common zeitgeist of the middlebrow American public, it’s got to be John Quincy Adams, but don’t most historians love him?

If it’s American historians, I’m not qualified to speak, but I like Teofilio’s Zachary Taylor choice.

April 8, 2008 at 8:56 pm

Jamie T.

How about TR for saving college football?

Grant’s role in reconstruction is complicated, but I think he was on the right side of the issue. From what I understand his accommodation to corruption in his administration was nil, but “the buck stops here”, right?

April 8, 2008 at 9:00 pm

anthony

LBJ, at least domestically, is vastly under-rated. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Voting Rights Act and ESEA both in 1965, the meeting of King in 1966 at the White House, Marshall appointed to the Bench, the last president to truly care about cities in any real way, the entire great society programs, including but not limited to education, medicare and urban renewal, genuine welfare reform, public broadcasting, training nurses, etc etc etc.

Vietnam was a emss, and I have no idea how he would ahve fixed it, it was mostly Kennedy’s fault, i think.

April 8, 2008 at 9:43 pm

Ben Alpers

That would be an interesting question too: which of our Presidents had the most odious pre-Presidential career?

He wouldn’t win, but Dubya might actually be in the conversation about this one, too.

As for Carter, I agree with PorJ. Richard Rhodes in his latest book does a terrific job describing how Carter and Reagan got involved in an irrational bidding war to throw money at the Pentagon for the sake of showing how tough they were during (and in the case of Reagan after) 1980. Of course this is probably what drip meant by “getting the military back on track,” so YMMV. And let’s not forget the great wave of deregulation for deregulation’s sake, which Carter also began.

And I agree with anthony about LBJ’s domestic presidency.

April 8, 2008 at 9:44 pm

andrew

So which president was the most overrated historian?

April 8, 2008 at 9:53 pm

Ben Alpers

So which president was the most overrated historian?

It’s always possible that Newt Gingrich could somehow get elected president and waltz his way to victory in this category.

April 8, 2008 at 10:03 pm

ari

TR can be pretty hard to read on the American past. And I’ve never read Wilson, but I can’t imagine that he was much good.

April 8, 2008 at 10:06 pm

chris

LBJ, hands down. Remove Vietnam from his file and his list of accomplishments is stunning, the culmination of the legacies of Lincoln and FDR.

That said, I also think LBJ was one of the biggest failures as President — for Vietnam. Shakespeare would have drooled at the chance to write King Lyndon.

I forget who it was — Dean Rusk? — who suggested in ’65 having the South Vietnamese regime ask us to leave, at which point we could have exited somewhat gracefully. Johnson, with some guts, could have saved his legacy at that moment. That he didn’t was a tragedy ultimately writ larger than life.

April 8, 2008 at 10:24 pm

Jeremy Young

Most overrated historian? Much as we might be steamed about folks like Victor Davis Hanson, it might have to be one of the ass-kissers from really long ago, like Josephus or Arrian.

From the American side, S. Walter Poulshock. Because no rating is low enough for that guy.

April 9, 2008 at 12:32 am

foolishmortal

Remove Vietnam from his file and his list of accomplishments is stunning,
And, as the poet said, if a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass when it hopped.

April 9, 2008 at 12:56 am

ari

Yes, it’s hard to get past the whole Tonkin Gulf episode, isn’t it? Which isn’t to take anything away from Johnson the domestic president, who, after FDR, likely ranks as the best of the twentieth century.

April 9, 2008 at 2:13 am

I’m going to have to disagree with Somin’s argument for reasons I explain here; it boils down to the fact that Harding took stands against lynching while enabling the most xenophobic round of immigration laws in the country’s history, so he deserves only so much praise. I know the whole corruption issue can be overstated (since WH wasn’t personally implicated in any of it), but Harding had guys in his administration who blew their own heads off to avoid prosecution. That’s pretty hard core.

As for my nomination, I’d make a half-hearted case for Martin Van Buren — mostly on the basis of his excellent facial hair and his willingness to say “no thanks” to Texas….

April 9, 2008 at 2:17 am

ari

D! First Yglesias and now D! Or maybe it was first d and then Yglesias (because d’s comment got caught in our spam filter, which has been very active lately, I can’t tell for sure). Regardless, it’s “Ari’s Favorite Bloggers Night” at the EotAW. Time for the balloon drop. Okay, enough fawning, I’m far too cool for that. Still, welcome, d.

April 9, 2008 at 2:51 am

drip

Its d, not D. He’s LGM’s most underrated,so he gets only lowercase.

April 9, 2008 at 2:54 am

ari

I was shouting, demonstrating my enthusiasm by promoting him to upper-case standing. But yeah, I see your point. It doesn’t make much sense except where I’ve got the exclamation points. I’ll change it. If he’s pissed and never comes back, I’m blaming you.

April 9, 2008 at 3:38 am

drip

No, my bad. I can’t hear you way back here. I guess you can’t sleep with all the excitement.

April 9, 2008 at 4:34 am

ari

I had a coke at dinner. Which is why I’m up. What’s your excuse? And did you win their, LGM’s that is, pool? I thought I saw your name earlier. But I’m too lazy to look now.

April 9, 2008 at 5:25 am

drip

Tis true. I was even shipped the highly sought after Certificate of Championship-ness. My excuse for being up is that I am old and wake up at 4:30 (EDT).

April 9, 2008 at 7:03 am

dware

I think that Arthur gets the “most under-rated” nod when I teach survey, but I have done my best to suggest that Warren Harding deserves more regard than he has customarily enjoyed. His assent to normalization of relations with Mexico (cleaning up the dog’s breakfast left by Wilson and the GOP) counts for much, as should his choices for half of his cabinet: Hughes, Mellon and Hoover.

Two other Harding grace notes: the man pardoned Eugene Debs a little early, and took much solace from Laddie Boy, one of the most distinctive pets to have haunted (dogged?) the white house corridors. Of course, if we throw Laddie Boy into the mix, then we have to extend the courtesy to Barney and Miz Beasley. sigh.

April 9, 2008 at 7:16 am

eric

I do a “one and a half cheers for Harding” lecture. It always starts well, but then about thirty minutes in I realize I’m unconvinced. Tariffs up! Income taxes at the highest bracket down! Immigration restricted! And that’s even before we get to pious incompetence and fraud. Yes, he proposed a federal antilynching law, but that was the part of his agenda that did not get enacted. How can you rate a president who was in favor of two good things, many bad things, and only saw the bad things become law?

April 9, 2008 at 7:39 am

Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever received such a warm welcome! I suppose that means I should stop commenting at places like Confederate Yankee and American Power….

Anyhoo… Harding might not be on my underrated list, but he’s at the top of my “Presidents With Whom I’d Like to Play Poker” list, as well as “Presidents Whom I’d Like to Give a Reassuring Pat on the Back and/or Non-Sexually Suggestive Hug Unless You’re Into that Sort of Thing But Hey I’m Really Just Doing This Because the Stress Your Corrupt Friends is Causing You is Probably Going to Kill You in 1923” list.

He doesn’t, though, make my “Presidents With Whom I’d Like to Have Drunken Fistfight” list.

April 9, 2008 at 7:57 am

eric

Oh, I see d already said that. Never mind.

April 9, 2008 at 8:03 am

Galvinji

It’s always possible that Newt Gingrich could somehow get elected president and waltz his way to victory in this category.

I didn’t think Newt Gingrich was particularly highly regarded as a historian. Surprisingly enough (at least to me) his dissertation was on educational policy in the Belgian Congo.

For president who is the most overrated historian, I’d vote for Kennedy (who at least won a Pulitzer). For president who was the most overrated university president, it would have to be Eisenhower.

April 9, 2008 at 8:51 am

charlieford

Not so surprisingly, Gingrich concludes that Belgian imperialism wasn’t too bad.

April 9, 2008 at 8:57 am

Galvinji

Belgians still like Herbert Hoover better.

April 9, 2008 at 9:22 am

drip

I don’t know if the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant constitutes history, or if it did, it would make Grant an historian, but its better history than anything Kennedy or Gingrich ever did.

April 9, 2008 at 9:59 am

PorJ

Once I actually looked up the story of Newt Gingrich’s scholarship. Its pretty hilarious. He was at Tulane, finished the Masters, had no idea of a PhD subject. A professor he liked told him to do the educational system in the Belgian Congo, even though Gingrich didn’t speak or read flemish, Dutch or French and had never visited Africa. He barely finished the 160-pager (without actually visiting the Congo), then barely got the Community College job through contacts, then barely got renewed at the CC and was given a strong warning that his prospects for tenure were miniscule; it appears his teaching was not particularly distinguished either. He was spending all his time on politics and cheating on his first wife…. I found an interview with him where he basically admits all this, that he was an utter failure as an academic (I don’t have the link, but I do remember some surprising candor on his part).

The guy worships the Tofflers. Imagine trying to shut him up at a faculty meeting!

April 9, 2008 at 10:18 am

PGD

Harding took stands against lynching while enabling the most xenophobic round of immigration laws in the country’s history,

I actually think of the 1925 immigration law as a giant success. A very underrated piece of legislation.

April 9, 2008 at 11:19 am

ari

d, that you’re surprised by the warm welcome suggests that you don’t realize that I’ve festooned my basement lair with LGM posters*, specifically the ones in which you’re in the foreground and that prick Lemieux is out of the frame. I also steal all of my sons “d” letter blocks. But that’s a story for another day.

* Viewable through the flickr link at my secret blog.

April 9, 2008 at 11:22 am

eric

“Presidents With Whom I’d Like to Have Drunken Fistfight”

Mind how you go.

April 9, 2008 at 4:33 pm

Wow, that’s a pretty good list. I’m pretty sure I could take Kennedy and Adams, but I think GW could probably kick me apart, kick me apart, ooooooh!

April 9, 2008 at 4:46 pm

eric

kick me apart, kick me apart

So awesome. Yet highly inappropriate for a family blog.

April 9, 2008 at 4:47 pm